Brighton couple try to evict 25,000 bees from under hood

Tommy Hill (right) ducks away from a honeybee that started buzzing his head when he and beekeeper Bill Hughes tried to get a closer look at the swarm that has taken over his wife’s 2011 Chevrolet Traverse at his Brighton home.

Tommy Hill (right) ducks away from a honeybee that started buzzing his head when he and beekeeper Bill Hughes tried to get a closer look at the swarm that has taken over his wife's 2011 Chevrolet Traverse at his Brighton home.

"Somehow they have mistaken that car for a hollow tree," Hughes said.

Cristi Hill/Special to The Commercial Appeal

What bees really like is a hollow tree, but Tommy and Cristi Hill found during the weekend that a new Chevy will do just fine.

They left her 2011 Chevrolet Traverse in their driveway Saturday when they went out for breakfast and to shop. When they returned about four hours later, they found an estimated 25,000 honeybees had swarmed under the hood of Cristi's crossover vehicle and onto the hood and windshield.

"You couldn't see the windshield wipers," Tommy said.

He and his wife are concerned about worldwide reports that bees are disappearing. "They're a vanishing thing," he said. While he wouldn't kill them, he was willing to make them feel unwelcome. From his rural home in Brighton, he drove his wife's car down U.S. 51 at 60 to 65 miles per hour.

"It didn't faze them," he said.

The bees still have not entered the passenger compartment of the car, so Hill tried driving through an automated car wash. The bees swarmed away but came back.

Finally, they called beekeeper Bill Hughes, who lives nearby. Hughes operates The Apiary of Bill and Joyce Hughes and arrived with a pickup truck loaded with three of his own beehives.

"The bees walked right into one. Then they came right back out. They've decided that car is their home," Hughes said.

Hughes said wild bees like to inhabit hollow trees, but a tall hollow tree beside the Hill driveway stood vacant.

"Bees act strange," he shrugged. "Somehow, they have mistaken that car for a hollow tree."

Tommy's brother, Marvin, came by Monday to see the invasion firsthand. His nickname is Buzz.

"Yeah, it's kind of funny," he said.

A retired radiologist, Buzz said he and his brother are allergic to bees.

"It's not to the point that we're anaphalactic. We just swell up," he said.

By then, Tommy had summoned the courage to open the hood of the Chevy. It was like a scene from a Stephen King movie, with bees clustered near the windshield on both sides. And that was just a partial view: Most of the bees forage during the day and return to their home at dusk. Also, many of the bees had invaded the engine compartment and at least one of the wheel wells.

Hughes said a typical beehive has up to 60,000 bees. He estimated the new -- and rapidly growing -- hive at roughly 25,000 bees. A queen bee can lay up to 2,000 eggs a day, he warned.

The bees likely are from a wild colony within a half-mile of the Hills' home, Hughes said.

Like Hill, Hughes did not want to kill the bees. His approach was to wait until dusk, then turn a garden hose on them. He told Hill that once they're gone, he should drive the car at least a half-mile away and leave it overnight.

Would that be the end of it?

"There's no telling what they'll do," Hughes said. He said the bees could swarm in a tree near where the Chevy had been and wait for it to return.

"I just hope nature takes its course and they go away to wherever it is they're supposed to be," said Cristi Hill.